Saturday, May 17, 2014

Review: 'Godzilla' is back on the case and that is awesome

Releasing a movie about giant monsters
stomping their way through the world’s major cities on the
weekend of my birthday? Well gosh, that’s just about the best present a guy
could ask for.

I’m
happy to report I won’t be needing a gift receipt as this latest incarnation of
“Godzilla,” which was directed by Gareth Edwards off of a script from Max Borenstein,
is a quite enjoyable entry into the 60 year-old (!) franchise.

At the
center of the chaos is Ford Brody (Aaron Taylor-Johnson), a guy with a tough
name and a tougher job: He disposes of bombs for the US Navy. When he was but a
small boy with a tough name, his mother (Juliette Binoche) was killed in an meltdown
at the Japanese nuclear power plant where both she and Ford’s father, Joe,
(Bryan Cranston) worked.

Joe becomes obsessed with the idea that it was
no accident that killed his wife and that the company that owned the plant is
covering something up.

Eventually,
Joe gets busted trying to sneak into the still-quarantined area around the
plant to search for clues. This forces now-adult Ford to leave his own wife, Elle
(Elizabeth Olsen) and their little boy behind and go get his father out of
jail.

Of
course, Joe immediately goes right back into the quarantine zone – which is
mysteriously not very radioactive – dragging Ford along for the ride and this
time they both get caught.

They’re
taken to the old plant where they meet a scientist who’s been studying strange phenomena
taking place at the plant and beyond for years, Dr. Serizawa (Ken Watanabe). While
there, Joe’s fears are confirmed: The company has been covering something up
and whatever that something is, it’s about to wake up.

From that
point we do the usual monster movie stuff. Cities are destroyed, Ford struggles
to get home to his wife and kid, the military hopes to nuke their problems away
while Dr. Serizawa, who carries around a watch his father gave him which
stopped during the Hiroshima blast, pleads for alternatives.

I’m
hesitant to get into much more detail than that because, at least to me, “Godzilla”
has a few surprises up its gigantic sleeves and that’s a rare thing to pull off
in today’s spoiler-loving world.

So
moving away from the story, the obvious question going in to “Godzilla” was,
will it be better than last year’s “Pacific Rim” – a movie that so lovingly
paid tribute to Godzilla and his giant beastly friends from yesteryear?

Well,
as good as this take on “Godzilla” is, it doesn’t quite manage to surpass “Pacific
Rim.”

Part of
the reason, and part of the problem with “Godzilla,” is there’s just the teeniest,
tiniest bit of giant monster fatigue coming so soon the heels of “Pacific Rim.”
There’s a decent amount of crossover between the two movies in theme, look and
action and so something that may have been a ten last year, maybe it’s down to
an eight or nine this time around.

There’s
one scene in particular in “Godzilla” where something, not saying what, takes
flight. It’s still awesome, but the exact same thing happened last year in “Pacific
Rim” and when I saw it then, I was downright giddy.

“Godzilla” also takes time to get going. The
movie wisely takes care of some of its origin story in the opening credits, but
there’s still a dizzying amount world-building to do, which results in a few
too many time and location jumps.

Things
slow down again a bit in the second act, when the script seems to be stalling
for time until it can get to its spectacular third act. For example: During one
attack, Ford briefly gets a small Asian boy to take care of, but once it’s not
really paid off in any meaningful way.

“Godzilla”
also has an unexpectedly quirky sense of humor that required some getting used
to. This includes things like toying with the audience by teasing huge battles,
but then cutting to a shot of someone watching the action taking place on a TV
or paying homage to its B-movie roots by playing fast and loose with logic.
There’s a lot of “Now how did no one notice that!?” moments. But once I got on
board with what the movie was doing, things picked up.

Outside
of those minor grievances, the movie is a ton a fun.

Director Gareth Edwards puts
together some truly incredible shots, such as a group of paratroopers dropping
into San Francisco almost right on top of Godzilla. There’s also an oddly poetic
and pretty shot where a battle-worn Godzilla collapses on a street, makes eye
contact with an equally battle-worn Ford for a second or two before the big monster
is slowly enveloped in dust and smoke.

The cast is an embarrassment of
riches, but the highlight is Watanabe, who is given the task of standing in for
an entire generation of overwhelmed yet steely-eyed and determined Japanese
scientists in monster movies.

He really shines when he’s criticizing
the arrogance of humans or speculating in nearly religious tones about the true
purpose of Godzilla.

The
movie’s final showdown in San Francisco is just a glorious symphony of
destruction and chaos. It’s everything you could want from a monster movie.
When Godzilla finally uncorks his radioactive breath, my audience actually applauded.
It’s been a little bit since I was in a theater where one scene earned that
kind of reaction.

We see more of Godzilla the
creature in this movie than the trailers let on, but it works because the
visual effects are across the board top notch. His look in more in tune with the
classic sort of taller, chunky, stub-nosed Godzilla of the past than the
longer, sleeker version we saw in America’s last effort, 1998’s disappointing “Godzilla.”

Even
though I’m still coming down off of a “Pacific Rim” high, I’m exactly the audience
for this movie. I ate up almost everything it served and enjoyed the hell out
of it.

But you
don’t have to be a Godzilla or even a monster movie fan to enjoy it. This movie
expends a ton of energy weaving human stories around the giant monster attacks,
not focusing on the attacks themselves. It’s
not until the third act that a giant fight really is given center stage.

So that
gives us a good deal of time to concern ourselves with human drama, some
oddball but fun humor, an unanticipated amount of honest-to-god tension, and
some smaller action scenes.

The
movie gets a solid B rating from me. The rewatchability may be hindered by the
laggy middle portion, but all criticisms aside, the movie is absolutely a worthy
successor to the six decades (!) of films that preceded it.